Rick Santorum should be the GOP's presidential candidate

Ladies, it looks like the hot fashion trend this year - thanks to the GOP - may soon be a burqa.

After all, Mitt Romney has just announced that as president he would cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood. Don't look startled, at this stage he's probably cut America's military spending if he thought it would help him clinch the GOP presidential nomination.

But not to be outdone in the jaw-dropping rightward lurch, Rick Santorum is already reminding us a women's place is really in the home, bearing children. For Santorum abortion rights are a non-starter, and even contraception is out of the question.

'Sex is supposed to be within marriage,' says Santorum. 'It's supposed to be for purposes that are yes, conjugal… but also procreative. That's the perfect way that a sexual union should happen…. This is special and it needs to be seen as special.'

Santorum maintains that contraception is 'a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.'

Santorum hasn't spelled out what 'how things are supposed to be' yet but you can be certain, ladies, that it involves you being barefoot and pregnant (and probably doing the dishes).

It's like the GOP are determined to take us back to the 1950's, to some bogus land of white picket fences and enforced silence, to the days when men like themselves literally laid down the law.
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During discussion of the mandatory transvaginal ultrasound bill that looks like passing in Pennsylvania (it already has passed in Virginia) Republican Governor Tom Corbett this week dismissed criticism of the invasive procedure by saying that any women who undergoes it will 'just have to close' her eyes.

That's right ladies, if you want medical care you'll shortly need a permission slip from the elderly white conservative men who run your state. How could you have a problem with that?

But did you know that 55% of all reproductive aged women now live in states that are hostile to abortion rights?

Did you know that the Republicans won't support the Violence Against Women Act because it includes same sex couples and migrant women in programs for domestic violence?

There is a bill making its way through the Arizona state legislature that will require women to prove to their boss they need birth control in order to treat a medical condition if they want their prescription to be covered by their insurer. Women will be forced to share their personal information with their boss in order to have access to basic health care.

How does that sound?

But it goes even further. This bill allows a woman's boss to fire her for using birth control as a contraceptive. You read that right, he can FIRE her. This bill has already been passed in the Arizona State House and is now up for debate in the State Senate.

Don't think this can't happen to you. It's already happening.

Personally I hope that the GOP pick Santorum to be their candidate this year. In past election cycles the hard right have moaned their party would have stood a better chance at the ballot box if they'd run a real conservative instead of a moderate like McCain or Romney.

So let them run their man. It would cool their ardor and stem their rhetoric to see how enthusiastically all 50 states reject this fundamentalist throwback. And perhaps a little real politic would have positive consequences for the presidential selection procedure in years to come.